1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for blending a friction material for use in a brake or other devices.
2. Related Art
The blending of a friction material of the type described has conventionally been effected mainly manually. More specifically, various components of the friction material, such as a reinforcing material, friction modifiers and a binder, are taken out of respective raw material cans, and are manually metered or weighed, and appropriate amounts of these components are manually charged into an agitator.
In the conventional blending of the friction material, the operator must directly touch fibrous or powdery raw materials. Thus, the environment in which the operator works is bad. Particularly, since the operator touches the harmful raw material such as asbestos during the blending operation, it is of urgent necessity to improve the working environment. In addition, since the conventional blending of the friction material mainly depends on a manual operation, the efficiency of the operation is low, and other problems, such as a weighing error due to the manual weighing and an error in selection of the raw materials, have been encountered.